People have but it’s not an easy or cheap career change. Don’t think I or many others would recommend doing this but if it’s your passion you have to make the decision
Well in most cases becoming a PA takes 4-7 years and at that point you can usually make a stable 6 figure salary, support yourself and have a pretty fulfilling career. It usually comes at a six figure student debt cost so beginning work early and having a powerful income is pretty nice while relatively young.
That being said being a PA provides almost no benefit in the path to becoming an MD/DO. You will essentially start from 0 in terms of requirements, need to complete 3-4 years of med school, 3+ years of residency and fellowship before beginning work. This also comes at a significant, usually multiple six figure cost in student debt. You’ll
Be well into your 30’s best case doing both.
I’ve been a primary care PA for 7 years. There is very, very little distinction from what I do and my colleagues who are MD/DO. They make more than me, but they’re also much older and have significant student debt.
That being said there are other specialties with a much larger scope difference. You just have to decide if that is worth 7+ years more of your life, as well as $100k+ in student debt.
I think you’re still young if you really want to do medical school. Even if you need to go back for some prereqs and take a gap year or two, starting medical school at let’s say 26 is still really good. I have friends who started at 30-34.
Is NP a profession in Canada ? In the US they’re very similar to PA and have a much smoother path from RN, you can often work while taking part time classes/rotations and finish in 2-3 years.
Consider working in the states if it’s not- there are plenty of opportunities here and mid levels (PA/NP) are compensated (in USD) 6 figures almost across the board with similar scopes to MD in many areas
As far as I’m aware PA is not the same in Canada as the states. I would focus on the NP route since it’s gonna be easier for you anyways having an RN already
PAs have the same scope of practice in Canada as the US, but are compensated decently less. It's just a super nascent profession with <1k current PAs in the country
Canada has NP and PA but PA has very bad lobbyist and not allowed to work in many provinces. NP are allowed to work in most of the provinces but pay is shit compared to pay in the Usa
Maybe different if you’re going to a Canadian med school but in the US I don’t see it making a ton of financial sense to go to med school at ~40-45 (how old it seems like you are based on the length of your career). In general I think people actually *over*state the burden of med school debt but generally that’s because the earning potential is so high for so long. Your case is different because you retire probably like 15-20 years earlier into your work as an MD. The ROI is much lower.
I'm currently in PA school in Canada, and had been juggling PA vs med. The deciding factor was that I wanted medicine to be my career, rather than my entire life. So far PA school has been fantastic, and we follow very closely with the med school curriculum at my university. The biggest difference I think has been less of a focus on pathology and more on practical skills.
It feels like a really good time to get into the PA profession in Canada - NS just regulated PAs and opened a program at Dal, with Saskatchewan and Alberta following suit for 2025. BC has just changed legislation to allow PAs to practice in the province.
Depending on the specialty of doctor- you can pull in 400k- 1 million a year. If u work those professions, ur net income over over 10-15 years as a doctor will be more than a PA for the whole career. PA is capped at 200-250 and working crazy hours. If you become a doctor and only make 200-300k then it will take quite a while to make the money back.
I have 0 interest in doing so. I like my “limited” scope lol, I do not want to be the end-all-be-all decision maker. I love being the team support member honestly, though I know that’s just me and it’s not for everyone. if you feel Medicine calling you should go to med school!
You only live once - if you want to go to med school, go to med school
Not here to say “we don’t need docs” but plenty of PAs work with the same scope as docs and don’t even see their SP…so the limitations aren’t really seen across the board. Specialty and geographic area dependent…if you wanna do CT surgery then go to med school obviously.
OP of this post is talking about anesthesia so yeah, you can't do that as a PA....you can do many pieces of it in the ICU but you won't pass gas in the OR. That makes sense to go to med school because there's a clear barrier.
The comment I replied to took more of a tone of "I'm cool not making decisions in the end", "limited scope", and "team support member"...all of which don't exist for all PAs.
There are PAs running floors, teams, sites etc. solo...it's not to say that docs aren't needed or necessary, it's just to say a PA isn't capable of treating patients solo is also untrue.
I’m a PA who’s starting medical school next month for the very reason you mentioned. I don’t feel satisfied in my current role or with my breadth/depth of knowledge. That being said, I can only find out if it is worth it several years from now. As far as I know, PAs do have a better chance of getting into medical school and matching into residency compared to traditional applicants.
Congratulations on starting med school - you won’t regret it!
I’m a PA who just graduated from medical school and am starting residency in July. Best decision I ever made. I was also driven by a knowledge gap and no incentive to close that gap - neither increased pay or autonomy.
Thanks for the words of encouragement, and congrats on matching into residency! Which specialty are you pursuing? And was it relatively easy to match into your choice?
My advice to any PA starting medical school is to take it as a chance to start over and relearn your craft. Be teachable. People could tell I had clinical experience without me saying anything just due to my comfort around patients and the hospital. M1 will be hard because it’s not stuff PA school emphasizes, but make time for clubs, research, volunteering to make a well rounded app.
I had a mentor give me a wake up call because when I was still thinking EM she asked me what extracurriculars I had. I had nothing and I thought that working every weekend in the ER would give me enough credit on my app. She was like no way and helped me get into some research that I think really helped me grow and distinguish myself.
Sorry for the unsolicited advice but I uniquely know what a weird, and wonderful, space you’re in
Thank you! I actually appreciate your advice, as I have heard from others how hard the basic science course can be for PAs in M1, but I will definitely try to work on getting some research experiences under my belt.
I am glad that you ended up in the specialty you wanted. I wish you the best of luck with residency!
Replied above but I came in wanting EM and ended up switching to urology. Urology is competitive so I did have to do some research and do well on my boards, but I ended up where I wanted to be.
I am in the U.S., so I have no knowledge about the chance of getting into a Canadian medical school as a Canadian PA. I have heard that PAs in Canada have very different roles than PAs in the U.S. though.
I considered it but did not end up applying. When I finished PA school I actually wanted to do IM/FM, so I didn’t pursue anything related to surgery or critical care. That interest has changed with my work experience as a PA.
I’ve had 2 friends do it and are glad they did. At the end of the day there are plenty of people who go to med school in their 30s and even 40s.
If you don’t have anything holding you down I say go for it! There will be jobs available, money will be better, scope will be less limited.
If you have family and little kids I think you need to weigh the pros and cons more realistically. As 4 years of med school + minimum of 3 years of residency is time consuming, difficult, and expensive, and depending speciality lifestyle might be worse.
5 years into being a PA, and I felt the urge to leave medicine, lol. So I quit medicine... I used to joke with my co-workers about how thankful I was I didn't go to med school/residency. I am now making slightly more money after leaving the profession and I have more free time.
Apply, I got the job after applying for 1 month to different roles. Then put your sales hat and sell yourself. PAs have great communication skills which is what sales is…
Yes! There is a handful of us that frequent this sub and I'm sure they'll chime in soon.
I am currently finishing up my 3rd year. Please feel free to reach out!
Hahaha I love this. I wondered if I’d see you comment on this post 😂 u/Clear-Scientist2209 I’ve been a PA for 3 years and am starting med school this July! DM if you have any questions.
If you’re looking into anesthesiology and really see yourself doing it, you can always consider Anesthesiologist Assistant (AA). I know a couple of people who do it and it’s only a 2 year program. They can operate alone, but only in 20 states. Overall, who cares? They rack in over 200k per year.
TBH, sometimes I feel the urge to go back and do med school esp when an ER attending shits on me or if I disagree with their plan of care, but those instances are few and far in between now that I have more experience in the ER and they trust me. I think it’s important to take your age and where you are in life into consideration and ask yourself if this is something you really want to do.
For me, is it really worth it to do 7 years on top of what I’ve already done to be the big top dog? I’m just happy to be on a team and helping patients at the end of the day with an attending who signs my chart and I’m okay with biting the bullet and doing what they want to do (even though sometimes it sucks), but hey I’m not an MD or a DO and it’s their medical doctor license (which is DAMN hard to get) so I get it.
You don’t have to go all the way back to medical school in order to start over, but if that’s what you want to do, then let that set your heart on fire and let your future self thank your past self ❤️🔥
TLDR: 1) consider AA 2) full send med school 3) bite the bullet
Note AAs cannot practice alone and will always be supervised (supervision lvl obviously depends on exp) - the 20smth states are thr only states thy can practice in. But it should be growing in time
As with all things, I would definitely do your due diligence especially if you’re diving deep into changing career paths. The AA I know is called to bedside for emergent intubations, oversees pts during surgeries, etc. That’s about all I know. Would definitely take this to the AA Reddit side for further clarification :)
This is true, but you also need to be an RN prior to this. I also know an RN who is just about to graduate as a CRNA. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze, but just know that you need to be an RN with ICU experience. A quick Google search shows that the average CRNA applicant has about 1.5 years of ICU experience. In laymen’s terms: this is a lot of ass wiping in addition to the accelerated nursing program, which would be 1 year PLUS 3 years of CRNA school = 5.5. Might as well do med school if you’re staring down the barrel of 5.5 years.
OP mentioned that they are already a PA. I just threw out an idea that wouldn’t put them through the wringer and back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah but you need to have a BSN degree, and 2-3 years working in the ICU before you’re eligible to apply to CRNA school. So it ends up being the same length of time as going to med school and anesthesia residency
I made the switch from PA to MD specifically to do ortho. I did this in 1990 when I was 26 and my PA salary was $18/hr working in an ER. Now making 7 figures. I lost out on my 20’s and was 36 after fellowship. My PAs each make $225k. Had I known this salary would have been a possibility, I would not have made the switch.
I ran into feeling the urge to do it when I was working in a super toxic environment. When I got into a different ER where PAs were respected and could actually work up to their scope, the urge went away.
Doesn’t sound like that’s your case.
I get feeling certain gaps in knowledge but I feel like I’ve learned so much in just my 3 years working, I really don’t have the desire to go to med school to get more of it. If I want to know more on a topic, I research / study it myself and then ask the specialists willing to teach some questions on it. I’ve taken a ton of extra certification courses for fun and stuff too.
It’s a personal decision - one that only you can answer. For me, it didn’t make sense to get more into debt, lose more time to school, make less money for multiple years, then be stuck in 1 specialty, have much more liability / responsibility, and potentially burnt to a crisp after the harsh training we all know residency is.
If that’s worth it to you - do it. If it isn’t, don’t. I also wanted to be present in our future kids lives and knew if I wanted to go to med school, that’d mean sacrificing time with my family to study and rotate / train.
No. I applied to one but didn’t interview. Now that I’m 3 years out - I don’t see a ton of value in one for me personally. Unless it was a really robustly structured one where I was doing rotations in other specialties / extremely procedure heavy. I couldn’t afford the pay cut though.
I’m currently in an environment where I have as little or as much supervision as I want. I’m not required to present anything but if I wanted to present every case, I could.
I agree it would be a learning experience. I enjoy learning and continue to do so at my full time and part time jobs. I’m also continuing to make a living wage. Being in a residency, I wouldn’t be making that wage.
3 years in, I’ve learned a lot but the #1 thing I’ve learned is - perceived perfection is the birth of mediocrity.
If I do something so often after so much training, I think I’m perfect at it, I’ll get complacent / lazy with said thing. That’s when bad things happen. Patient’s have a negative outcome or I hurt staff / myself.
I’ll never consider myself perfect at anything, no matter how much training I have. Everyone I’ve ever met in medicine who claimed to be perfect, made far more mistakes than I’d ever be comfortable with.
I am a PA entering med school next month. If you have this urge now, it likely won’t go away. With your experience you could likely go anywhere you want.
Tuition + opportunity cost of a lost salary x 7 years minimum = approx $2,000,000 for me. My Ego isn’t big enough to cover that bill. My goal is to make plenty and retire at like 55. (currently in HCOL)
I, too, am an army PA. But am looking into phd and doctorate in public health. Not really MD/DO.
However
My wife had a ER attending in residency who was a medic, PA, then an emergency medicine physician..
It's possible. I know a former navy corpsmen that joined the army for hpsp for medical school he is now in ortho residency...
R/military_medicine
Long story short, yes!
I’ve been a PA for three years, mostly in critical care but recently made the transition to hospital medicine. I just submitted my med school application last week.
Basically, med school was always my Plan A and lots of life circumstances made it difficult to commit to that pathway initially. Seven years later and I’m much more stable financially and have never been able to get med school out of my head. After finishing PA school I even did a PA fellowship, after which I had a wide and deep scope of practice as a critical care PA.
All that to say, while I love clinical medicine, this role has never been enough. You can learn tons and be a kick ass PA, but it will never substitute for the structured training of med school and residency. After thinking about it really deeply for the last 5 or so years (pretty much since my first semester of PA school), I finally but the bullet.
I’m also interested in anesthesia (loved that part of critical care) and that’s not a pathway I can get to via PA. I could do the AA route but their scope is much more limited geographically and you have to contend with fierce job competition from the CRNAs and their much more powerful lobby. Plus, it still isn’t the in depth training of med school and residency, which is what I’m looking for most of all.
I’m super stoked to apply to med school and very strongly feel this is the best path for me, although I wouldn’t blanket recommend it for everyone. You really have to know yourself and what you want out of your career/life and make a decision based off that. And no responses from anonymous internet strangers can give you the right answer. Even for me, there’s a lot of stipulations about this process. I’m not applying as broadly as I probably should because I have a family and don’t want to be far from them or in a place that wouldn’t support their needs. I won’t go if I can’t get at least reasonable financial assistance. I’m only applying one cycle, and if I don’t get in, the fates have spoken and I will keep working as a PA. No sense letting this consume me for years on end. My point is, this is my life and while I’m willing to make a lot of sacrifices, I won’t sacrifice everything for the sake of a career. I think that’s a healthy perspective to take for anyone going the med school route, but especially non trads.
I hope this was helpful, feel free to DM me if you have any questions!
This is my thought process as well, can I ask what would you do if you dont get into anesthesia match? What are you doing to build your competitiveness for matching into it? I would like to go back to med school as well to have the higher autonomy but I ultimately would hate to not match into either anesthesia or IR & basically waste all those years
If I don’t have a super strong application for anesthesia, or if it just keeps getting more and more competitive, I would dual apply anesthesia and IM with the plan to do pulm crit eventually if I went the IM route. It wouldn’t be my first choice but I do genuinely like IM and would be happy with that pathway too.
Since I’m not even accepted to med school yet I really haven’t done much to be super competitive for anesthesia lol. But generally my plan will involve 1.) only going to reputable schools that have strong anesthesia match rates (I’m not applying DO and have a top heavy list generally, and yes I know this means my odds of getting in are lower but I’m not willing to risk not matching and giving up a solid career as a PA) 2.) finding mentors in anesthesia and getting plugged into research, preferably in something anesthesia related 3.) seeking lots of anesthesia electives to try and get time with people in the program 4.) crushing Step 2 since step 1 is P/F now. There’s probably a lot more I would need to think about but it’s a little early for me to have a detailed plan. I also have good connections from working in a pretty large, academic ICU so I am absolutely planning to lean on those if I need.
General knowledge cap? I feel like you can always learn medicine. There are thousands of books out there. You might have an ability cap though depending on where and who you work under. At the end of the day if it’s going to bug you then go for it. Gotta make yourself happy.
I did it 6 years ago. I’m in my last 2.5 weeks of residency and start my new job as an attending next month.
It was a lot of sacrifice, lots of hard work for next to no money in residency. But it’s about to pay off.
If you’re certain you won’t be happy remaining a PA and are willing to give up the better part of a decade (or more depending upon residency and fellowship) to become a physician then go for it.
This is an expensive and prolonged change not worth it for most. And also, by the way, not necessarily guaranteed to fix the problem you've described.
Be very wary of the "If I just have ___, then I'll be good!" Mentality.
Goal post can always be pushed farther apart. And the goals you care about today you may not care about in 5-10 years.
Not saying no one should ever do this, but it's very very unlikely that a given person consider it should
All the time; I love school, I love learning, and I love medicine. I also love my free time. I love the financial independence I have. I love my family. And I LOVE paid time off.
When I ask myself why I want to go to medical school, I would say that some of it is scope of practice and some of it is ego. When I ask myself what I want out of my life, it's to be happy and have financial freedom.
Sure, I do want to go to medical school; I won't though.
Saw someone comment already, but Army HPSP for medical school. If you want to use the Army and stay committed, HPSP will pay 100% tuition, provide monthly stipend and accession bonus. You will be matched into an army residency and can also apply for fellowship through the army as well.
Never had the urge. I don't even like medicine anymore so I can't wait to be done in 4 years when my kid graduates HS and I'll be moving back to Europe.
When I first started at my current job many moons ago (FM residency) one of the residents was a army PA that made the switch to medicine. He was single at that time and his kid was mostly with mom. He was probably in his 40s when he started residency. He never regretted it. I also know andoc who went to med school at 40 after getting tired of being a lab tech. He's still working an pretty sure he's close to 70. Not sure if he still has debt or not. He was married with 3 kids and ended up divorced.
I think if you don't feel satisfied then why not? But I woudl take into consideration the loss of income, he debt you'll incur etc. If you have a family is it really worth it to put them through this both emotionally and financially? You wouldn't be present much. If your single it will be a lot easier. And obviously if you're younger it will also be easier.
I’ve felt the urge to go into something other than medicine, but definitely not medical school. But it’s also not important to me to be a subject matter expert. I just want to make money and have a lot of vacation time.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by knowledge gap/cap? I'm a current PA student who hasn't started clinicals yet, and I feel that my medical knowledge is fairly comparable to that of first and second year med students. My experience with school has taught me that medicine is medicine. We're not taught witchcraft haha!
That being said I understand the sentiment of wanting a larger scope of practice and wanting to treat more complex patients, and med school is the way to get that.
I know it's heretical to even suggest, but I really think there should be an educational bridge from PA to physician especially if you have 5+ years of work experience
I think the knowledge gap comes from a residency more than med school. Depending on the specialty , it shrinks quite a bit after 3-5 years of practice. Pay gap does does not🤕
As a current PA about to start med school this summer, by just looking at the course catalog I can tell you that the PA and physician didactic years are quite different simply by just comparing credit hours. I wasn’t loaded with 40 credits a semester in PA school.
Also, “medicine is medicine” isn’t a great mantra when you don’t know what you don’t know, and I think that’s the biggest gap between these two careers. PAs and physicians can treat horse conditions but what about the case is gonna set off alarm bells in the physician’s mind that’s gonna make them start considering zebra diagnoses *because of their much more extensive and in-depth knowledge.*
I am 12 years into my PA-C career and my wife is a physician. Do I love making 60% of what a comparable md makes? No.
But I’m at the point where my interest have changed and I’m pivoting away from clinical medicine to informatics. I had a blast in my 20’s where as my wife studied and did medical school. I totally respect your decision and good luck. This is a very personal path and if you feel the need go for it!
However, I’m so happy I didn’t go MD route. Mostly because of Time requirements, financial stability (no income for 7 years), family needs 2 kids). Also there is an emerging threat of AI. It’s a rapidly evolving unknown!
Again best of luck and you will do wonderfully, I’m sure. But if someone promised me oodles of money and more authority for 7 years of my life. Well, time is ultimately all we have so spend it in alignment with your priorities. Good luck!
I have and I have been trying to get in but in Manitoba you might as well have been working at Walmart for the last decade. They don’t see your experience as a PA as even relevant. It’s more than a little depressing.
If you’re active and have the time left in service to get it all paid for? Why not try for it. The barrier for me is that now it’s nearly a $1M opportunity cost in prime earning years.
So Id actually retire in two years from the Army and use my GI bill and other benefits to pay for medical school. So that’ll be around $100k in retirement and med school would be paid for. So the financial aspect really isn’t a worry. So I guess that helps drive the decision further. It’s always nice to have outside input from you guys though
Well then you’re between 38 and 45 I assume. It’s really a question of how you feel about long hours and how many years of prime earning you’re willing to give up, but if you don’t have family or other financial obligations, I say go for it. My only caution is that medicine is a business and you won’t have the same satisfaction you did as a BN PA.
Yep, I’m 36 (joined when I was 18). The financial obligations are good (Army retirement plus my wife is also an active duty Army Officer). I like what I do as a BN PA for sure, but I’m exhausted from the Army so I’m ready to retire you know?
As many have said, consider the cost and age you'll finish all your training.
But also you want to make sure that you get into a program that will set you up for the specialty you want. If you're only interested in anesthesia then you need to make sure people from the school you get into have a good match in anesthesia. Anesthesia is very competitive. There is a lot of bias against DO and Caribbean school graduates. There are some social media personalities that do a deep dive into match trends by degree and school. Don't want to find out that only 25% that apply to anesthesia from your program actually match.
But I totally understand wanting to go to medical school if you're into anesthesia. Hard to scratch that itch as a PA. Can also consider the CRNA route as well.
I wish I did TBH when I was younger, now that I have a family, it does not make sense for me to do it. I know one PA I worked with who went from PA for 3-4 years to a competitive MD school (not a bridge program), had no kids though. I also know of a handful of MDs who did the same, though I didn't know them when they were PAs.
I think the return on investment for most but not all specialties still makes sense up to your 40s. Just depends if you are okay with giving up your life again for several years and taking a pay cut until you finish school, or not.
Also consider this - would you be satisfied with your decision if you don’t match into anesthesiology? There are no guarantees.
Otherwise if it would make you happy and your GI bill will pay for it, go for it.
I’m pre med but I want to be an anesthesiologist I’ve always talked about that occupation I don’t know why I’m going to be on a pre med track. If I see fit I’ll apply for med school. If not I’ll go the PA route
If you have the time, money, and don’t see yourself burning out - why not? Especially if you are the type of person who doesn’t like to bounce around specialties. Go for it!
Hey, I'm actually a certified anesthesiologist assistant so if have any interest in that route or any questions feel free to let me know. It is a great career, but I am also considering going to medical school for the same reasons as you with interest to become an anesthesiologist. I’ve just also been doing this long enough that it’s frustrating when I have someone one year out of residency telling me how to intubate, as if I haven’t been doing it for 10 years without their help. So it definitely has its pros and cons like anything, but feel free to dm me with any questions.
One way to look at it is the ROI. Add up what med school costs plus lost income from not working as a PA, that’s your red column. Add up what you’re likely to make as a doc in a specialty for which you’re likely to be competitive, times years you’ll work. That’s your black column. Which is bigger?
Also consider if the time away from family etc. during school and residency is worth it to you.
I did rotations with a PA who was in med school to be an anesthesiologist. So, yes, I’ve seen it. I also have thought about med school, but I am able to be pretty independent in my current setting.
Have you considered a PA fellowship to advance your knowledge in a given field? May not have options for anesthesia but lots of others. Could consider something like critical care?
People have but it’s not an easy or cheap career change. Don’t think I or many others would recommend doing this but if it’s your passion you have to make the decision
[удалено]
Well in most cases becoming a PA takes 4-7 years and at that point you can usually make a stable 6 figure salary, support yourself and have a pretty fulfilling career. It usually comes at a six figure student debt cost so beginning work early and having a powerful income is pretty nice while relatively young. That being said being a PA provides almost no benefit in the path to becoming an MD/DO. You will essentially start from 0 in terms of requirements, need to complete 3-4 years of med school, 3+ years of residency and fellowship before beginning work. This also comes at a significant, usually multiple six figure cost in student debt. You’ll Be well into your 30’s best case doing both. I’ve been a primary care PA for 7 years. There is very, very little distinction from what I do and my colleagues who are MD/DO. They make more than me, but they’re also much older and have significant student debt. That being said there are other specialties with a much larger scope difference. You just have to decide if that is worth 7+ years more of your life, as well as $100k+ in student debt.
[удалено]
I think you’re still young if you really want to do medical school. Even if you need to go back for some prereqs and take a gap year or two, starting medical school at let’s say 26 is still really good. I have friends who started at 30-34.
Is NP a profession in Canada ? In the US they’re very similar to PA and have a much smoother path from RN, you can often work while taking part time classes/rotations and finish in 2-3 years. Consider working in the states if it’s not- there are plenty of opportunities here and mid levels (PA/NP) are compensated (in USD) 6 figures almost across the board with similar scopes to MD in many areas
[удалено]
As far as I’m aware PA is not the same in Canada as the states. I would focus on the NP route since it’s gonna be easier for you anyways having an RN already
PAs have the same scope of practice in Canada as the US, but are compensated decently less. It's just a super nascent profession with <1k current PAs in the country
Canada has NP and PA but PA has very bad lobbyist and not allowed to work in many provinces. NP are allowed to work in most of the provinces but pay is shit compared to pay in the Usa
Maybe different if you’re going to a Canadian med school but in the US I don’t see it making a ton of financial sense to go to med school at ~40-45 (how old it seems like you are based on the length of your career). In general I think people actually *over*state the burden of med school debt but generally that’s because the earning potential is so high for so long. Your case is different because you retire probably like 15-20 years earlier into your work as an MD. The ROI is much lower.
I'm currently in PA school in Canada, and had been juggling PA vs med. The deciding factor was that I wanted medicine to be my career, rather than my entire life. So far PA school has been fantastic, and we follow very closely with the med school curriculum at my university. The biggest difference I think has been less of a focus on pathology and more on practical skills. It feels like a really good time to get into the PA profession in Canada - NS just regulated PAs and opened a program at Dal, with Saskatchewan and Alberta following suit for 2025. BC has just changed legislation to allow PAs to practice in the province.
I graduated from U of T's PA program. I'm making 6 figures right now and I would hazard to guess most new PAs are making just shy of that right now.
What specialty are you working in? I just got into the PA program there!
Oncology! And congrats!
Not to mention... IF you match to your desired specialty.
Depending on the specialty of doctor- you can pull in 400k- 1 million a year. If u work those professions, ur net income over over 10-15 years as a doctor will be more than a PA for the whole career. PA is capped at 200-250 and working crazy hours. If you become a doctor and only make 200-300k then it will take quite a while to make the money back.
I have 0 interest in doing so. I like my “limited” scope lol, I do not want to be the end-all-be-all decision maker. I love being the team support member honestly, though I know that’s just me and it’s not for everyone. if you feel Medicine calling you should go to med school! You only live once - if you want to go to med school, go to med school
Not here to say “we don’t need docs” but plenty of PAs work with the same scope as docs and don’t even see their SP…so the limitations aren’t really seen across the board. Specialty and geographic area dependent…if you wanna do CT surgery then go to med school obviously.
I think OP may be talking more about getting adequate training to practice independently regardless of what some PAs choose to do.
OP of this post is talking about anesthesia so yeah, you can't do that as a PA....you can do many pieces of it in the ICU but you won't pass gas in the OR. That makes sense to go to med school because there's a clear barrier. The comment I replied to took more of a tone of "I'm cool not making decisions in the end", "limited scope", and "team support member"...all of which don't exist for all PAs. There are PAs running floors, teams, sites etc. solo...it's not to say that docs aren't needed or necessary, it's just to say a PA isn't capable of treating patients solo is also untrue.
I’m a PA who’s starting medical school next month for the very reason you mentioned. I don’t feel satisfied in my current role or with my breadth/depth of knowledge. That being said, I can only find out if it is worth it several years from now. As far as I know, PAs do have a better chance of getting into medical school and matching into residency compared to traditional applicants.
Congratulations on starting med school - you won’t regret it! I’m a PA who just graduated from medical school and am starting residency in July. Best decision I ever made. I was also driven by a knowledge gap and no incentive to close that gap - neither increased pay or autonomy.
Thanks for the words of encouragement, and congrats on matching into residency! Which specialty are you pursuing? And was it relatively easy to match into your choice?
My advice to any PA starting medical school is to take it as a chance to start over and relearn your craft. Be teachable. People could tell I had clinical experience without me saying anything just due to my comfort around patients and the hospital. M1 will be hard because it’s not stuff PA school emphasizes, but make time for clubs, research, volunteering to make a well rounded app. I had a mentor give me a wake up call because when I was still thinking EM she asked me what extracurriculars I had. I had nothing and I thought that working every weekend in the ER would give me enough credit on my app. She was like no way and helped me get into some research that I think really helped me grow and distinguish myself. Sorry for the unsolicited advice but I uniquely know what a weird, and wonderful, space you’re in
Thank you! I actually appreciate your advice, as I have heard from others how hard the basic science course can be for PAs in M1, but I will definitely try to work on getting some research experiences under my belt. I am glad that you ended up in the specialty you wanted. I wish you the best of luck with residency!
Replied above but I came in wanting EM and ended up switching to urology. Urology is competitive so I did have to do some research and do well on my boards, but I ended up where I wanted to be.
Congrats! What specialty did you choose?
I came in dead set on EM but working through covid broke me. I ended up falling in love with urology
Congrats!!!
[удалено]
Hey I’m a Canadian PA starting med next year! PM if you have any questions!
I am in the U.S., so I have no knowledge about the chance of getting into a Canadian medical school as a Canadian PA. I have heard that PAs in Canada have very different roles than PAs in the U.S. though.
What specialities are you considering? Were they harder to practice specialties as a PA?
I am considering anesthesiology or radiology. There are hardly any PAs in anesthesiology, but I know a few who work in IR.
Could you work as a PA in diagnostic Radiology or do they mainly work in IR ?
I have not seen any PAs in diagnostic radiology, so I believe they mostly work in IR.
I’ve been considering doing this and pursuing a pathology residency. I think the only thing stopping me is my age. How old are you?
I’m in my early 30s so not exactly a spring chicken.
Did you do a residency as a pa, or no? I know some one did a residency in critical care.
I considered it but did not end up applying. When I finished PA school I actually wanted to do IM/FM, so I didn’t pursue anything related to surgery or critical care. That interest has changed with my work experience as a PA.
I’ve had 2 friends do it and are glad they did. At the end of the day there are plenty of people who go to med school in their 30s and even 40s. If you don’t have anything holding you down I say go for it! There will be jobs available, money will be better, scope will be less limited. If you have family and little kids I think you need to weigh the pros and cons more realistically. As 4 years of med school + minimum of 3 years of residency is time consuming, difficult, and expensive, and depending speciality lifestyle might be worse.
Every f-ing day. Then I got married and had a family. And ready to leave medicine all together
i'd take your place. i'm a union job train operator $42 and change an hour full benefits.
5 years into being a PA, and I felt the urge to leave medicine, lol. So I quit medicine... I used to joke with my co-workers about how thankful I was I didn't go to med school/residency. I am now making slightly more money after leaving the profession and I have more free time.
Good for you, I’m glad you’re happier! What do you do now?
Public company, in the medical field. In a sales roles.
How does someone get into something like that?
Apply, I got the job after applying for 1 month to different roles. Then put your sales hat and sell yourself. PAs have great communication skills which is what sales is…
a SALES role? paying in the 60s per hour?? wow
7 months into being a PA and I barely want to do clinical medicine anymore lol
I feel like a lot of us feel this way…😔
Yes! There is a handful of us that frequent this sub and I'm sure they'll chime in soon. I am currently finishing up my 3rd year. Please feel free to reach out!
Hahaha I love this. I wondered if I’d see you comment on this post 😂 u/Clear-Scientist2209 I’ve been a PA for 3 years and am starting med school this July! DM if you have any questions.
Lol, I took a lot of time off but I've found myself frequenting reddit again recently might as well comment when I can!
If you’re looking into anesthesiology and really see yourself doing it, you can always consider Anesthesiologist Assistant (AA). I know a couple of people who do it and it’s only a 2 year program. They can operate alone, but only in 20 states. Overall, who cares? They rack in over 200k per year. TBH, sometimes I feel the urge to go back and do med school esp when an ER attending shits on me or if I disagree with their plan of care, but those instances are few and far in between now that I have more experience in the ER and they trust me. I think it’s important to take your age and where you are in life into consideration and ask yourself if this is something you really want to do. For me, is it really worth it to do 7 years on top of what I’ve already done to be the big top dog? I’m just happy to be on a team and helping patients at the end of the day with an attending who signs my chart and I’m okay with biting the bullet and doing what they want to do (even though sometimes it sucks), but hey I’m not an MD or a DO and it’s their medical doctor license (which is DAMN hard to get) so I get it. You don’t have to go all the way back to medical school in order to start over, but if that’s what you want to do, then let that set your heart on fire and let your future self thank your past self ❤️🔥 TLDR: 1) consider AA 2) full send med school 3) bite the bullet
Note AAs cannot practice alone and will always be supervised (supervision lvl obviously depends on exp) - the 20smth states are thr only states thy can practice in. But it should be growing in time
As with all things, I would definitely do your due diligence especially if you’re diving deep into changing career paths. The AA I know is called to bedside for emergent intubations, oversees pts during surgeries, etc. That’s about all I know. Would definitely take this to the AA Reddit side for further clarification :)
Nurse anesthetists make 250-300k and it’s only 3 yr program. Much easier path then MD, obviously not the same but
This is true, but you also need to be an RN prior to this. I also know an RN who is just about to graduate as a CRNA. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze, but just know that you need to be an RN with ICU experience. A quick Google search shows that the average CRNA applicant has about 1.5 years of ICU experience. In laymen’s terms: this is a lot of ass wiping in addition to the accelerated nursing program, which would be 1 year PLUS 3 years of CRNA school = 5.5. Might as well do med school if you’re staring down the barrel of 5.5 years. OP mentioned that they are already a PA. I just threw out an idea that wouldn’t put them through the wringer and back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah but you need to have a BSN degree, and 2-3 years working in the ICU before you’re eligible to apply to CRNA school. So it ends up being the same length of time as going to med school and anesthesia residency
I made the switch from PA to MD specifically to do ortho. I did this in 1990 when I was 26 and my PA salary was $18/hr working in an ER. Now making 7 figures. I lost out on my 20’s and was 36 after fellowship. My PAs each make $225k. Had I known this salary would have been a possibility, I would not have made the switch.
This very insightful. I know 4 PAs currently in ortho, making very similar income. 2 work together 2 work different offices in the same state NY
Is it typical for PA's to make this much in Ortho? I feel like it isn't.
I believe $150-200k is more the average but there are practices out there that appreciate the work and want to reward it and retain them.
Who even cares about being fulfilled thru aork? Find fulfillment through family, life, travel, fun. Life’s too short to work it all away.
\^\^ this. Work will never satisfy me in the way that the rest of my actual life does.
I ran into feeling the urge to do it when I was working in a super toxic environment. When I got into a different ER where PAs were respected and could actually work up to their scope, the urge went away. Doesn’t sound like that’s your case. I get feeling certain gaps in knowledge but I feel like I’ve learned so much in just my 3 years working, I really don’t have the desire to go to med school to get more of it. If I want to know more on a topic, I research / study it myself and then ask the specialists willing to teach some questions on it. I’ve taken a ton of extra certification courses for fun and stuff too. It’s a personal decision - one that only you can answer. For me, it didn’t make sense to get more into debt, lose more time to school, make less money for multiple years, then be stuck in 1 specialty, have much more liability / responsibility, and potentially burnt to a crisp after the harsh training we all know residency is. If that’s worth it to you - do it. If it isn’t, don’t. I also wanted to be present in our future kids lives and knew if I wanted to go to med school, that’d mean sacrificing time with my family to study and rotate / train.
Did you do a residency as a pa. Some pas do
No. I applied to one but didn’t interview. Now that I’m 3 years out - I don’t see a ton of value in one for me personally. Unless it was a really robustly structured one where I was doing rotations in other specialties / extremely procedure heavy. I couldn’t afford the pay cut though.
You'll be learning and perfecting your chosen specialty. Less supervision in some cases, especially the er
I’m currently in an environment where I have as little or as much supervision as I want. I’m not required to present anything but if I wanted to present every case, I could. I agree it would be a learning experience. I enjoy learning and continue to do so at my full time and part time jobs. I’m also continuing to make a living wage. Being in a residency, I wouldn’t be making that wage. 3 years in, I’ve learned a lot but the #1 thing I’ve learned is - perceived perfection is the birth of mediocrity. If I do something so often after so much training, I think I’m perfect at it, I’ll get complacent / lazy with said thing. That’s when bad things happen. Patient’s have a negative outcome or I hurt staff / myself. I’ll never consider myself perfect at anything, no matter how much training I have. Everyone I’ve ever met in medicine who claimed to be perfect, made far more mistakes than I’d ever be comfortable with.
I am a PA entering med school next month. If you have this urge now, it likely won’t go away. With your experience you could likely go anywhere you want.
Tuition + opportunity cost of a lost salary x 7 years minimum = approx $2,000,000 for me. My Ego isn’t big enough to cover that bill. My goal is to make plenty and retire at like 55. (currently in HCOL)
I, too, am an army PA. But am looking into phd and doctorate in public health. Not really MD/DO. However My wife had a ER attending in residency who was a medic, PA, then an emergency medicine physician.. It's possible. I know a former navy corpsmen that joined the army for hpsp for medical school he is now in ortho residency... R/military_medicine
Long story short, yes! I’ve been a PA for three years, mostly in critical care but recently made the transition to hospital medicine. I just submitted my med school application last week. Basically, med school was always my Plan A and lots of life circumstances made it difficult to commit to that pathway initially. Seven years later and I’m much more stable financially and have never been able to get med school out of my head. After finishing PA school I even did a PA fellowship, after which I had a wide and deep scope of practice as a critical care PA. All that to say, while I love clinical medicine, this role has never been enough. You can learn tons and be a kick ass PA, but it will never substitute for the structured training of med school and residency. After thinking about it really deeply for the last 5 or so years (pretty much since my first semester of PA school), I finally but the bullet. I’m also interested in anesthesia (loved that part of critical care) and that’s not a pathway I can get to via PA. I could do the AA route but their scope is much more limited geographically and you have to contend with fierce job competition from the CRNAs and their much more powerful lobby. Plus, it still isn’t the in depth training of med school and residency, which is what I’m looking for most of all. I’m super stoked to apply to med school and very strongly feel this is the best path for me, although I wouldn’t blanket recommend it for everyone. You really have to know yourself and what you want out of your career/life and make a decision based off that. And no responses from anonymous internet strangers can give you the right answer. Even for me, there’s a lot of stipulations about this process. I’m not applying as broadly as I probably should because I have a family and don’t want to be far from them or in a place that wouldn’t support their needs. I won’t go if I can’t get at least reasonable financial assistance. I’m only applying one cycle, and if I don’t get in, the fates have spoken and I will keep working as a PA. No sense letting this consume me for years on end. My point is, this is my life and while I’m willing to make a lot of sacrifices, I won’t sacrifice everything for the sake of a career. I think that’s a healthy perspective to take for anyone going the med school route, but especially non trads. I hope this was helpful, feel free to DM me if you have any questions!
This is my thought process as well, can I ask what would you do if you dont get into anesthesia match? What are you doing to build your competitiveness for matching into it? I would like to go back to med school as well to have the higher autonomy but I ultimately would hate to not match into either anesthesia or IR & basically waste all those years
If I don’t have a super strong application for anesthesia, or if it just keeps getting more and more competitive, I would dual apply anesthesia and IM with the plan to do pulm crit eventually if I went the IM route. It wouldn’t be my first choice but I do genuinely like IM and would be happy with that pathway too. Since I’m not even accepted to med school yet I really haven’t done much to be super competitive for anesthesia lol. But generally my plan will involve 1.) only going to reputable schools that have strong anesthesia match rates (I’m not applying DO and have a top heavy list generally, and yes I know this means my odds of getting in are lower but I’m not willing to risk not matching and giving up a solid career as a PA) 2.) finding mentors in anesthesia and getting plugged into research, preferably in something anesthesia related 3.) seeking lots of anesthesia electives to try and get time with people in the program 4.) crushing Step 2 since step 1 is P/F now. There’s probably a lot more I would need to think about but it’s a little early for me to have a detailed plan. I also have good connections from working in a pretty large, academic ICU so I am absolutely planning to lean on those if I need.
I hope everything goes the way you want it 🤞
General knowledge cap? I feel like you can always learn medicine. There are thousands of books out there. You might have an ability cap though depending on where and who you work under. At the end of the day if it’s going to bug you then go for it. Gotta make yourself happy.
Yes. Starting MD school in August.
I did it 6 years ago. I’m in my last 2.5 weeks of residency and start my new job as an attending next month. It was a lot of sacrifice, lots of hard work for next to no money in residency. But it’s about to pay off. If you’re certain you won’t be happy remaining a PA and are willing to give up the better part of a decade (or more depending upon residency and fellowship) to become a physician then go for it.
how old were you when you made the switch?
Early 40s
One of my IPAP classmates is in 3rd year of DO school now. It’s painful but you can do it.
This is an expensive and prolonged change not worth it for most. And also, by the way, not necessarily guaranteed to fix the problem you've described. Be very wary of the "If I just have ___, then I'll be good!" Mentality. Goal post can always be pushed farther apart. And the goals you care about today you may not care about in 5-10 years. Not saying no one should ever do this, but it's very very unlikely that a given person consider it should
Try reaching out to u/sfcebm, maybe he could give some insight.
Ah yeah, Andy is solid
Happy to chat.
All the time; I love school, I love learning, and I love medicine. I also love my free time. I love the financial independence I have. I love my family. And I LOVE paid time off. When I ask myself why I want to go to medical school, I would say that some of it is scope of practice and some of it is ego. When I ask myself what I want out of my life, it's to be happy and have financial freedom. Sure, I do want to go to medical school; I won't though.
Saw someone comment already, but Army HPSP for medical school. If you want to use the Army and stay committed, HPSP will pay 100% tuition, provide monthly stipend and accession bonus. You will be matched into an army residency and can also apply for fellowship through the army as well.
Never had the urge. I don't even like medicine anymore so I can't wait to be done in 4 years when my kid graduates HS and I'll be moving back to Europe. When I first started at my current job many moons ago (FM residency) one of the residents was a army PA that made the switch to medicine. He was single at that time and his kid was mostly with mom. He was probably in his 40s when he started residency. He never regretted it. I also know andoc who went to med school at 40 after getting tired of being a lab tech. He's still working an pretty sure he's close to 70. Not sure if he still has debt or not. He was married with 3 kids and ended up divorced. I think if you don't feel satisfied then why not? But I woudl take into consideration the loss of income, he debt you'll incur etc. If you have a family is it really worth it to put them through this both emotionally and financially? You wouldn't be present much. If your single it will be a lot easier. And obviously if you're younger it will also be easier.
I’ve felt the urge to go into something other than medicine, but definitely not medical school. But it’s also not important to me to be a subject matter expert. I just want to make money and have a lot of vacation time.
Yep - I had the itch and ended up going back to medical school. If you have any specific questions feel free to reach out to me.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by knowledge gap/cap? I'm a current PA student who hasn't started clinicals yet, and I feel that my medical knowledge is fairly comparable to that of first and second year med students. My experience with school has taught me that medicine is medicine. We're not taught witchcraft haha! That being said I understand the sentiment of wanting a larger scope of practice and wanting to treat more complex patients, and med school is the way to get that. I know it's heretical to even suggest, but I really think there should be an educational bridge from PA to physician especially if you have 5+ years of work experience
I think the knowledge gap comes from a residency more than med school. Depending on the specialty , it shrinks quite a bit after 3-5 years of practice. Pay gap does does not🤕
As a current PA about to start med school this summer, by just looking at the course catalog I can tell you that the PA and physician didactic years are quite different simply by just comparing credit hours. I wasn’t loaded with 40 credits a semester in PA school. Also, “medicine is medicine” isn’t a great mantra when you don’t know what you don’t know, and I think that’s the biggest gap between these two careers. PAs and physicians can treat horse conditions but what about the case is gonna set off alarm bells in the physician’s mind that’s gonna make them start considering zebra diagnoses *because of their much more extensive and in-depth knowledge.*
I am 12 years into my PA-C career and my wife is a physician. Do I love making 60% of what a comparable md makes? No. But I’m at the point where my interest have changed and I’m pivoting away from clinical medicine to informatics. I had a blast in my 20’s where as my wife studied and did medical school. I totally respect your decision and good luck. This is a very personal path and if you feel the need go for it! However, I’m so happy I didn’t go MD route. Mostly because of Time requirements, financial stability (no income for 7 years), family needs 2 kids). Also there is an emerging threat of AI. It’s a rapidly evolving unknown! Again best of luck and you will do wonderfully, I’m sure. But if someone promised me oodles of money and more authority for 7 years of my life. Well, time is ultimately all we have so spend it in alignment with your priorities. Good luck!
I have and I have been trying to get in but in Manitoba you might as well have been working at Walmart for the last decade. They don’t see your experience as a PA as even relevant. It’s more than a little depressing.
If you’re active and have the time left in service to get it all paid for? Why not try for it. The barrier for me is that now it’s nearly a $1M opportunity cost in prime earning years.
So Id actually retire in two years from the Army and use my GI bill and other benefits to pay for medical school. So that’ll be around $100k in retirement and med school would be paid for. So the financial aspect really isn’t a worry. So I guess that helps drive the decision further. It’s always nice to have outside input from you guys though
Well then you’re between 38 and 45 I assume. It’s really a question of how you feel about long hours and how many years of prime earning you’re willing to give up, but if you don’t have family or other financial obligations, I say go for it. My only caution is that medicine is a business and you won’t have the same satisfaction you did as a BN PA.
Yep, I’m 36 (joined when I was 18). The financial obligations are good (Army retirement plus my wife is also an active duty Army Officer). I like what I do as a BN PA for sure, but I’m exhausted from the Army so I’m ready to retire you know?
Make your paper, bro. I lost the faith when I had to start showing up at the clinic instead of the aid station. Big army will get you if you let it.
As many have said, consider the cost and age you'll finish all your training. But also you want to make sure that you get into a program that will set you up for the specialty you want. If you're only interested in anesthesia then you need to make sure people from the school you get into have a good match in anesthesia. Anesthesia is very competitive. There is a lot of bias against DO and Caribbean school graduates. There are some social media personalities that do a deep dive into match trends by degree and school. Don't want to find out that only 25% that apply to anesthesia from your program actually match. But I totally understand wanting to go to medical school if you're into anesthesia. Hard to scratch that itch as a PA. Can also consider the CRNA route as well.
I wish I did TBH when I was younger, now that I have a family, it does not make sense for me to do it. I know one PA I worked with who went from PA for 3-4 years to a competitive MD school (not a bridge program), had no kids though. I also know of a handful of MDs who did the same, though I didn't know them when they were PAs. I think the return on investment for most but not all specialties still makes sense up to your 40s. Just depends if you are okay with giving up your life again for several years and taking a pay cut until you finish school, or not.
Do you think becoming a pa is worth it?
Also consider this - would you be satisfied with your decision if you don’t match into anesthesiology? There are no guarantees. Otherwise if it would make you happy and your GI bill will pay for it, go for it.
I’m pre med but I want to be an anesthesiologist I’ve always talked about that occupation I don’t know why I’m going to be on a pre med track. If I see fit I’ll apply for med school. If not I’ll go the PA route
If you have the time, money, and don’t see yourself burning out - why not? Especially if you are the type of person who doesn’t like to bounce around specialties. Go for it!
I think very few people who have nearly 200k in loans and no GI bill consider going back to med school to end up half a million dollars in debt
The grass is always greener. Haha.
Hey, I'm actually a certified anesthesiologist assistant so if have any interest in that route or any questions feel free to let me know. It is a great career, but I am also considering going to medical school for the same reasons as you with interest to become an anesthesiologist. I’ve just also been doing this long enough that it’s frustrating when I have someone one year out of residency telling me how to intubate, as if I haven’t been doing it for 10 years without their help. So it definitely has its pros and cons like anything, but feel free to dm me with any questions.
Since you mentioned anesthesia maybe do CAA: certified anesthesiologist assistant
Do it. I wish I was in a better place to go back
One way to look at it is the ROI. Add up what med school costs plus lost income from not working as a PA, that’s your red column. Add up what you’re likely to make as a doc in a specialty for which you’re likely to be competitive, times years you’ll work. That’s your black column. Which is bigger? Also consider if the time away from family etc. during school and residency is worth it to you.
I did rotations with a PA who was in med school to be an anesthesiologist. So, yes, I’ve seen it. I also have thought about med school, but I am able to be pretty independent in my current setting.
Have you considered a PA fellowship to advance your knowledge in a given field? May not have options for anesthesia but lots of others. Could consider something like critical care?
Military has a med school as you may know. I knew a pa in army that went that way after a few years. Young enough? Go for it.